Five Times Someone Realized the Twins Were Homeless
by Gandalf3213
Summary: It has never been harder to be Omegas. Ethan and Aidan have always taken care of themselves, but now that they're playing the part of the average high school teens, hiding the fact that they have no where to go at night, and nothing to eat, is getting difficult.


_"Does this hurt you as much as it hurts me?" **Aidan**_**  
**

.***.

**i. Derek:**

There was someone watching them at the end of the school day, that unbelievable school day where no one got taken or ended up bleeding, where they were actually in school and thinking about school for the first time in years. Aidan had just told Ethan that, no, for real he had to take math for him. He couldn't remember why x was important to find in the first place. Ethan had laughed. Actually laughed, and said that sure, Danny was in that math period. It was like they'd walked off the set of a horror movie and onto a teen high school drama, where the biggest plot point was that they used their identical twin-ness to switch classes and one of them liked to kiss boys.

And then they spotted Derek leaning against the fencepost, staring. "Shit," Aidan said, his fingernails lengthening into claws before the word was even out of his mouth. "Who are we killing now?"

Ethan elbowed his brother in the ribs and looked at Derek, who was attracting stares and pretending not to notice. "What do you want, Derek?"

"You've been going into my house."

"No we haven't!" Ethan said.

At the same time Aidan snorted, "Like we'd want to sneak into that ugly dump."

Derek's eyes narrowed, and faster than a blink he was pressing Aidan against a low wall, clutching him by the collar. "Not my apartment, bitch." He was so close, and so angry, that flecks of spit were falling onto Aidan's eyebrow. "My _house_. My _family's house_."

"Oh," Aidan said, remarkably calm for someone who was getting spittle in their eyes from the baddest Alpha left in town. "We didn't know it was your house."

Derek shoved Aidan away from him, and Ethan moved seamlessly in front of his brother, ready to take the brunt of another attack if he needed to, so Aidan could catch his breath. Derek noticed this, and wondered why the hell the twins couldn't seem to muster up loyalty for anyone other than themselves. "Stay out of my house."

"Not like you're using it," Ethan said. "It's just sitting there."

"It's a grave," Derek hissed. "It's my family's tomb."

Aidan was still choking, Ethan could feel it in that deep, instinctive part of him that was connected to his brother. And it was because of that residual pain that he'd felt all too often that he argued back. "But where are we supposed to go?"

"I don't care," Derek said, throwing his arms out, "Why are you even sticking around anymore? Your little high school crushes? You repulse them. You've rejected my help, Scott's help. Do us all a favor and leave."

"You're not our alpha," Aidan said, his voice hoarse enough for Ethan to wince in sympathetic pain.

"That's exactly your problem."

"Where are we supposed to run to?" Ethan demanded.

"I. Don't. Care." Derek repeated. "But leave my house"

Aidan, feeling bold again, stepped past Ethan's arm, "Or what?"

Derek's eyes flashed red. "I will kill you. Slowly."

He growled, a deep Alpha sound that made the hair stand up on the back of the necks of the two Omegas, and pushed past them.

Ethan watched him go, feeling a sinking feeling in his gut. The weather was starting to turn cold, it was supposed to rain tonight, and their little money was running out fast. "Screw him," Aidan murmured, reading his mind as always, "We'll be okay. At least we're out of the Alpha pack."

The Alpha pack, which hadn't been different from their old pack at all, where they'd still been the last to eat and the first to be beaten if things went sour. Ethan snorted, "Since when did you become Mr. Silver Lining?"

They both hated sleeping outside in the rain. They'd done it too often.

**ii. Coach Finstock**

It's not like Coach Finstock hadn't tried to get those two muscular twins on the lacrosse team. They were built like trucks and, from their stack of detention slips, were mean as wild dogs. But they'd scoffed and turned him down, even when he wheedled that he'd be able to get them out of detention for the rest of the semester. So he'd given up, but he hadn't stopped watching them.

Here's a truth about teachers: they had favorites. One of Finstock's favorites was his goalie, Danny Mahealani, because one time when Danny was a Freshman he'd come into the coach's office with a sprained wrist and said he was afraid of the nurse, a three hundred pound black woman with a bad temper, and could Coach just wrap it up, please? So Coach did, and he asked, gruffly, why Danny had a sprained wrist, and Danny said that his stupid best friend Jackson was supposed to meet him at a party in a bad neighborhood and he hadn't showed and Danny had gotten bored and horny and started making out with a guy (here Danny looked up at Coach, eyes wide, saying don't judge me, please don't, I can't take it again, and Coach had shrugged. He cared not a bit. He was thinking that Danny looked like he could play lacrosse) and anyway some girls started pointing and throwing food and then some guys threw him into a dumpster. "And then Jackson showed," Danny said, sounding both annoyed and amused, "and beat the crap out of them. I hurt my wrist falling into the dumpster, though."

Anyway, the point is that Finstock liked Danny, and so he kept an eye on the twins, because one of them was gay and he couldn't tell them apart. And he noticed their anger issues, and decided to dislike them.

That dislike was only confirmed one late night when he was grading econ papers and bemoaning the future of America if these kids went out in the world and decided to play with money and he heard a noise, like a door slamming. Kids snuck into the school all the time. The police were often called. Sometimes they found a dead body. Beacon Hills was weird.

Finstock went out into the hall, holding a flashlight and an econ paper, because he forgot he had it in his hand. "Who's there?" There was the scuffing sound of sneakers against tile, and Finstock jogged down the hall just in time to see the flash of a shirt disappearing down a corridor. The only thing in that direction was a door that led to a staircase that led to the basement. And there was another basement staircase right next to Finstock's room.

He tore down the stairs, flipped on the lights, and blinked at the basement. Crates of papers had been emptied, the paper piled into stacks like mattresses. Costumes for the drama department were thrown on top like blankets. And on top of thee makeshift blankets was one of those twins.

The other ran into the basement from the other staircase and pulled up short when he saw Finstock. "Shit. Wake up, Aidan. We've got company."

Aidan on the bed sat up slowly. His eyes narrowed when he looked at Finstock. "What do you want?" He nodded at the paper in Finstock's hand. "Gonna give us a bonus quiz?"

"What the hell are you doing down here?"

"What does it look like?" the standing twin asked. "We sleep here."

"You can't do that!" Finstock shouted.

"Why not?" Aidan asked. "The doors are left open. Obviously we're not the first people to get in here at night. It's warm enough. And we're never late for school."

Finstock would never have guessed he would have to explain the basic function of teenage-hood to a teenager. "You can't stay here because you need parental supervision. Where are your parents?"

"Dead," Aidan said. His brother shot him a look, and Aidan amended, "or as good as."

"Great," Finstock muttered, "Runaways. What about uncles? Cousins? Distant relations of any kind?"

"Don't got any," Aidan said, "We can take care of ourselves."

Finstock rolled his eyes, "oh yeah, those bruises on your neck tell me you're going hell of a job." Aidan's hand went to his neck and his brother dropped to his knees in front of him, shaking his head and muttering something about kinky-ass bondage shit. Finstock didn't even want to know. "And you-other twin."

"Ethan," the kneeling twin said. "I'm in your econ class."

"I'm not the one with the freaky identical twin thing going on. What were you doing upstairs? Were you stealing?" Finstock looked around and spotted a backpack, dropped when Ethan came down the stairs. "What did you take, the soccer trophy?" He ripped the bag open, expecting to see watches or cash or maybe a computer. He wasn't expecting bread and peanut butter and a carton of orange juice.

He looked from the bag to the twins, who were glaring back at him, trying for defiant, but Aidan just looked like he was in pain and Ethan just looked scared. "Well," Finstock said, dropping the bag of food. "I'm going to go make a call."

"You can't report us to the system," Ethan said, standing up. "We'll just run away. You don't want us in a group home."

"Yeah," Aidan chimed in, "we're dangerous."

"I don't doubt that," Finstock said. Protocol dictated that he did call CPS. But he'd seen the system fuck up on teenagers before, and anyway he knew that these two would run before risking the chance of being split up by the courts who never could seem to keep siblings together. And they were in school. They were trying.

If this were a different story, Finstock would put aside his abrasive personality and adopt the basement twins. They'd teach him something about life and he'd learn how to tell them apart. But in this story Finstock had a small house and a smaller teacher's salary and just enough patience for angsty boys to coach lacrosse. "I'll be back in five minutes," Finstock said, "and I'm not calling CPS, even though I should. I'm ordering a pizza-two pizzas," he amended, running a practiced eye over the twins and realizing they were underweight for their size, "bacon and jalepenos good for you?"

Ethan smiled, and that expression made Finstock wish this were a different story. Aidan eyed him suspiciously. "Why would you help us?"

Because he'd seen this happen before, too often. He'd seen Isaac come to school with belt marks on his back and he'd seen a girl with five siblings taking peanut butter out of the cafeteria and he knew the feeling of being a teenager, on the cusp of manhood, too old to ask for help, too young to help yourself. "Because I'm a nice guy, and this is your lucky day." He started up the stairs, already knowing he'd have to get a First Aid kit, too, have to go through the process of coaxing those angry boys out of their shirts so he could determine he could do nothing to help them.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped. "You can't stay here. I'm sorry."

"Everyone's sorry," one of the twins said back.

"Shut up," the other muttered, "I'm hungry."

**iii. Stiles**

Stiles couldn't sleep. Ever since the stupid Nemeton and stupid dying he had been having monumentally awful dreams, and eventually he got sick of waking up to his father's frightened concern. So he stopped sleeping at night. He'd take naps when he got home from school (hell, he'd sleep _in_ school) and he'd sleep in the early morning, so when his father woke him up for school he'd be in his room. But the majority of the evening was spent out of his room. Usually at Scott's place, where his friend asked no questions. But sometimes his wordless concern became too much and Stiles would just sit in his car in the woods, or drive and drive and think about how fucked up his life was. It was his fault. He'd dragged Scott out to find Cora's body that first night.

Tonight it was raining. Stiles had always loved the sound of rain against the metal roof of his car, and had nearly been lulled to sleep by it several times while driving. Maybe if he just slipped into his car, curled up on the front seat and waited for dawn, he could get three or four solid hours of rest.

He turned on the car, hoping to drive the November chill out, hoping the rain would mask the sound of the engine starting up so his father would stop looking at him like he was a case to solve. He also turned on his police scanner, because the infrequent graveyard shift calls to dispatch made him feel less alone.

It was working. The rain, the crinkling static, had put him to sleep in seconds, that first level of sleep that was nearly awake and filled with thoughts just starting to solidify into dreams. He would dream about fireflies tonight. He could see them, in that first level of sleep, blinking little stars. He didn't mind the firefly dreams. He could sleep for hours staring at the cloud of them, though he always woke up feeling like he should find them more frightening than he did.

And then he heard the groan from the back seat.

It was hard to leap into any kind of a fighting position while curled up in the front seat of a jeep, but Stiles tried. "Jesus! What the hell?" He looked at the backseat and saw a person, a person bundled up in two sweatshirts and still shaking. "Hello, whichever twin you are," Stiles's voice was higher than he liked it to be but this was scary, damnit. He was having nightmares and now there was actually a confirmed murderer sneaking in the back of his car? Nuh-uh. No way.

"Aidan," the shape muttered, slowly sitting up. His back cracked, like he'd been curled up for a while. "Turn up the heat, will you?"

Stiles blinked. "No, I will not. Get out. Get out now."

"It's raining," Aidan said.

"I've noticed."

"You wouldn't kick a guy out in the rain."

"Yeah I would!" Stiles's voice was still too high, but what the hell, "You don't get to act indignant! I'm indignant! What are you doing in my car?"

Aidan, on the other hand, was infuriatingly calm. "You don't lock it."

"That's not an invitation!" Stiles craned his neck to squint at the shadowy way-back. "Where's your other half?"

There was a flash of lightning, and Stiles could swear he saw something like sadness mingling with the usual anger on Aidan's face. "He's out."

"In the rain?"

"No," Aidan sighed, "look, if you really don't want me here..."

"I really don't want you here." Thunder rolled over the car, and Stiles cringed at the noise. "But I guess you can't go now. You'll probably get struck my lightning."

"Like you would care," Aidan said.

"I wouldn't care," Stiles retorted, "You kill people and you seem to like it. Also, twins generally creep me out. But Lydia likes to make out with you. That's something. And Danny sees something in Ethan. Probably that he's hot. Because you're both ridiculously hot. I swear I'm not gay. Probably. Anyway. Other people would care if you die. Danny and Lydia are awesome people. If you hurt them I'll destroy you."

This seemed to amuse Aidan. "How would you do that? You're human."

"Hey. Don't underestimate me." Stile turned up the heat, and eyed the backseat, which was longer and more comfortable. "Scootch over."

Aidan raised an eyebrow. "I'm not the gay one."

"Neither am I. I'm cold."

"You have a perfectly good bed."

"I have my reasons. Also, this is my car so shut up, I'm being nice." Stiles finally maneuvered himself into the back seat and ended up tucked into Aidan's side. "You're incredibly uncomfortable."

"It goes along with being incredibly good looking."

Stiles wasn't listening. He was glad he wasn't alone. And if he woke up screaming at least the bad twin definitely wouldn't pile on the concern. "Hey," he said, sleepily, "have you and Ethan been sleeping in my car a lot?"

"Sometimes."

"Why?"

"You leave it unlocked. It's been cold," Aidan put an arm around Stiles's shoulders and tried not to be pissed off that the human was falling asleep on him. "We have no where else to go."

But Stiles didn't hear, and didn't remember, and therefore couldn't help. He was already asleep.

**iv. Danny**

Danny pushed Ethan off of him, "Stop."

Ethan stopped. Like, froze as if he'd been turned to stone. "Jesus. Did I hurt you? I'm sorry." He scooted back until there was a foot of air between him and Danny and then just stared, stared as if Danny was the most precious thing in the world, as if Danny was handsome, or confident, or worth it.

"You didn't hurt me," Danny scoffed, grabbing Ethan's wrist and dragging him close again. "I just...I mean slow down, take a breather. You've been pretty...determined...all night."

Ethan almost put his hand on Danny's leg, looking at the other boy for confirmation that contact was okay. "I'm sorry. I'm crap at this."

"Are you...?" Danny trailed off, coughed, tried again, "Are you a virgin?"

Ethan barked out a humorless laugh, "no. I'm not exactly used to being on top with guys but..."

"With guys?" Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you been with girls? Not that I'm judging. We've all been there. Or at least I have. But you seem very...okay with gay."

He was surprised when Ethan looked uncomfortable. Worse, he looked _caught_, trapped. "This is really deep angsty shit, Danny. Lifetime movie shit."

"We don't have to talk about it," Danny said, "you know that the option to not talk it always on the table." He went in for a kiss, and Ethan's lips were unresponsive as glass.

"No," Ethan murmured, and this time it was Danny's turn to pull back, Danny's turn to stop everything. "I...we need to talk about some things, Danny. It wouldn't be safe if we didn't. I don't want to hurt you."

"You didn't. You wouldn't. I trust you."

"How far are you willing to go?" Ethan said, the words bursting out of him in a fit of bravery. "Cards on the table, we're both going to be embarrassed for five minutes. But what do you want to do? With me?"

"Everything," Danny said, surprised that that was the first word on his lips. He amended. "Slowly. And just...just tell me if you're going to do something new." Ethan nodded, so seriously, like he was etching Danny's words in stone, like they were becoming unbreakable law. "What about you? What have you done before?"

"I've..." Ethan looked scared. He wouldn't meet Danny's eyes. "Me and Aidan we...we haven't exactly had the most stable lives. No parents or anything. We used to be hungry a lot. So, umm, three years ago? Maybe four? Aidan came home with, like, two hundred dollars. Cash. He'd gotten it-" Ethan broke off.

"I know how he got it," Danny said. He wasn't stupid. "You did that too?"

Ethan nodded. "It's been pointed out that we're kind of incredibly good looking. It wasn't hard." He shot Danny a look. "I didn't like it. I'm not-I don't think of myself as a whore. But it didn't, like, break me or anything stupid like that. We did what we had to do."

"I get it," Danny said. And he was trying to get it. "Thank you for telling me," that sounded so robotic. Ethan still wasn't looking at him, so Danny picked up his hand off the bedspread and kissed his fingers. "You're not a whore," he assured the boy (he was doing math, three or four years meant Aidan would have been thirteen, maybe fourteen, maybe twelve. Jesus Christ) "You're more than what you've done."

"Do you really think that?"

"Do you still do it?" Danny asked, expecting the answer to be a swift no. What he got was silence. "Ethan?"

"Please don't be mad."

"Have you been sleeping around since we've gotten together?" Danny moved away from Ethan. He hadn't been angry before-confused, sad-but not he felt something hot and red burbling up inside him. Jealousy.

Ethan balled his hands into fists. "Once. But Beacon Hills is too small to do anything like that without attracting suspicion. Aidan got picked up by Sheriff Stilinski three weeks ago, so we stopped. I swear we stopped."

Danny took a deep breath. This was a lot to take in at once. "What have you been doing for money?"

"Sleeping here," Ethan said. "Thanks for that, by the way, I know I must have come off as the neediest boyfriend ever. And we steal food from the cafeteria." Ethan shivered, glanced out the window. "Lydia kicked Aidan out last week."

"Where's he been sleeping?"

Ethan shrugged, "Around." He smirked, "get it? Sleeping around?"

"It's not funny," Danny's voice was tight, and his face felt hot, like he was going to cry. "What are you guys going to do? Why do you even stay here, if you don't even have a place to sleep?"

Ethan reached out a tentative hand and put it on top of Danny's. "Aidan agreed to stay because I asked him to. And I'm staying-well, isn't it obvious why I'm staying?"

This time when they kissed, both parties responded enthusiastically.

**v. Derek, again**

Ethan just wanted to leave town and forget. He was glad he got to see Danny again, and smiled at the memory of the kiss, of Danny telling him he'd known about werewolves all along, of course he had, his best friend had turned into one, his boyfriend was one. But Ethan couldn't smile for long. Nothing could hold his interest for long any more.

He'd known about the connection he'd had with Aidan. They used to be able to fuse into one thing. They used to be able to know what the other was going to say, going to feel. They used to be able to feel each other's pain. It was a primal thing, an instinct. And it was only with the connection gone, with Aidan gone, that Ethan realized how much of himself had been wrapped up in his twin.

The bikes had been gone for ages, but Ethan went to Scott the night before, planning to beg him for his bike, or buy it. Scott had taken one look at him, fidgeting in the doorway, and said, "you're leaving aren't you?"

"I can't stay," Ethan looked past Scott to see his mom and Isaac coming into the room, back-up in case the big bad wolf decided to lash out irrationally. That was probably a good thing. Ethan had been feeling extremely irrational lately. "I...I need a way out of town."

"Take my bike," Scott said immediately, handing him the keys. "And Ethan? We're all in your debt. If Aidan hadn't-"

"He wanted to," Ethan said, needing them to understand this at least, "he wasn't a bad guy."

"We know that," Mrs. McCall came forward, put a hand on her son's shoulder. "You're not a bad guy either, Ethan."

"You don't have to leave," Scott said, "you can be in my pack if you want. You totally earned it."

Ethan clutched the keys so tightly they made little indentations in his palm. "I can't stay where he died."

"Okay," Scott said, still looking troubled. "But...the bike's a loan, okay? I expect to see it again. Someday."

Which is how Ethan made it to the edge of town. For ten or twenty seconds, he could forget that he was half dead, and then he'd look over his shoulder and see nothing but his own shadow, and remember. He was looking at his shadow when he nearly ran over Derek Hale.

"Running away?" Derek asked, once Ethan braked hard and skidded past him, tipped onto his side, caught his leg under the bike, tripped, and finally righted himself in front of the Alpha. Derek's face remained impassive the whole time. "This is becoming your MO."

"I didn't steal the bike," Ethan said, instantly defenseless, "Scott gave it to me."

"I know," Derek said, "he called me. Asked if I could say something to make you stay." Derek looked over Ethan's shoulder, at the open road. "I ran away after my family died. It didn't solve anything."

"You had to avenge them. You had to come back," Ethan kicked the bike back into an upright position. "I wish I had something to kill." The whole future was just a slate of white noise, bland and unappealing without Aidan by his side. "I don't know the point anymore."

"And you think leaving is going help you find the point?"

"Well I'm not going to find it here," Ethan spread his arms. "Danny broke up with me-because I'm a werewolf, by the way, not because I'm a dick, you should spread the word that humans are not as clueless as we like to thing. Everyone's happy and friends again. I don't belong with them."

"Neither do I," Derek said. "But something bad is always going to happen to Beacon Hills. And it's always going to need someone to defend it."

Ethan smirked, "So I should stay so I get to play Batman?"

"Robin," Derek corrected. "And after Beacon-Hills-Gotham, you're going to miss the excitement."

"I really won't," Ethan said. "And the last time I was in a pack, it didn't end well."

"I run a different kind of pack. Ask Isaac. I'll never make you do something you don't want to do. And I'll make sure you have food, and shelter. I promise."

Ethan shook his head, "Why? Why would you do that when we've-I've," he stopped for a second. He wasn't a we anymore. How fucking depressing was that? "I'm a pretty terrible Beta."

"You're a pretty terrible Omega," Derek pointed out. "But I'm asking you because I kicked you out of an unused house four months ago and you didn't go back. I know what you had to do to keep from starving this winter. And I," Derek's eyes slid away from the younger boy's. He didn't say this often. "I'm sorry."

Ethan looked out over the open road. "I don't want to talk about that. Or Aiden. And I'll probably be broody and pathetic if I can't convince Danny to go out with me again."

"Okay," Derek said.

"Okay," Ethan replied.

**.***.**

**we won't bother saying how much we loved teen wolf, but we will bother saying that aidan's death was really very emotional for us. as identical twins, we would appreciate it if people stopped killing us off as plot points. very not cool.**

**but please review. tell us what you think. tell us if we got it wrong, but as far as we recall it was never explained where exactly ethan and aidan were living when they left the alpha pack. this is our explanation.**

**peace,**

**us**


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